President of Cricket West Indies (CWI) Ricky Skerritt has strongly hinted that he expects to see action taken against veteran batsman Chris Gayle, following a recent public outburst, which mainly disparaged former teammate and Jamaica Tallawahs assistant coach Ramnaresh Sarwan.
In the now-infamous YouTube post, Gayle accused Tallawahs franchise chief executive Jeff Miller and owner Krish Persaud of "playing a game". His fiercest criticism was, however, reserved for Sarwan who he accused of having a role in his unexpected dismissal from the franchise. In the video, Gayle referred to Sarwan as a ‘snake’ and described the former batsman as ‘worse than the coronavirus’. Sarwan has denied any involvement in the non-renewal of Gayle’s Tallawah’s contract and insisted the assertions made against him were false.
Skerritt, who called the incident unfortunate, said CWI was keeping a close eye on the situation, but insisted that for now the prerogative of taking action would be in the hands of the CPL to which Gayle is contracted.
"It cannot be good for West Indies cricket obviously. It is certainly not something that I enjoyed reading about," Skerritt told Trinidad radio station i955fm in a recent interview.
“If however, a player is contracted to a club or a franchise or to Cricket West Indies, then (due to) the contract they have signed, that kind of behaviour brings that contract to some level of disrepute. So, I would expect that this most recent matter is not over,” he added,
" I think Chris is going to face…I'm sure there's some kind of discussion taking place at the moment between Chris and the CPL because Chris is signed into a franchise team."
The CWI boss, however, went on to make it clear that the CPL still fell within the remit of the regional cricket governors and as such, they would be keeping an eye on the matter.
"If he was on contract with Cricket West Indies, and to a certain extent it is by being in the CPL, so we kind of have a watching interest. But we'll wait and see what happens,” Skerritt said.
While insisting he expected the due process to run its course, Skerritt said he hoped the outburst would not lead to the cricketer’s career coming to a premature end.
"I hope it doesn't become a world matter in terms of the career of Mr. Gayle because it's been a very outstanding career and I really wouldn't want to see it being brought to an end by this event."
Gayle has since joined the St Lucia Zouks.